Resource scarcity is increasingly perceived as one of the greatest global security risks of the twenty first century. Meanwhile, potential raw materials are still being dumped or burned at an incredable large scale and faste rate.

Make innovation happen

Hi, thank you for visiting our website. You already made it to this page, so you must have a curious nature. That’s good! Like Einstein said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

Well, let me start at the beginning. In 2013 I joined an organisation dedicated to reduce the waste mountain. Soon I learned that a lot of organisations are spinning in circles debating the Circular Economy issue.

I started questioning myself if all these Circular Economy discussion groups with fun activities, like sustainability contests and events, were able to close the resource loop. The answer is no, as long as the initiatives are too small and people keep building on old ways of thinking.

We need a different approach to resource recovery

New technologies and scale are necessary to prevent resource depletion, economic disasters and world wars on strategic resources.

The people who are curious and keep questioning the efficiency of existing systems are the ones that make innovation happen and save our planet. And that’s exactly why The Circular Company exists since 2014.

Executive team

Niels Wagemaker

Chief Executive Officer

I have learned a lot the past 22 years of my career: from Greenpeace, where I was, among others, responsible for ‘green’ procurement of supplies, from working in the residential building construction and from my career as a designer, IT consultant, business developer & investor.

If there’s one thing I have learned is that there’s always a solution to a problem. In some cases you have to innovate, in some cases you go back to what worked well in the past or a combination of these two. However, if you do nothing the problem will remain. That’s not an option. Especially when it comes to environmental issues. The greatest threat to our planet is the assumption that someone else will save it.

Sustainable development has always been a natural step for me. In 1997 I built my house from used building materials. Using brand new resources and materials isn’t always necessary, it’s a result of modern capitalism. Let’s use what we already have first.

Martin van Zanten

Chief Project Officer

After finishing my study Aeronautical Engineering at the Royal Military Academy in 1975 and a series of additional courses, I became Chief Technical Squadron with the Royal Dutch Air Force in 1984, in the rank of Major. In this role I was responsible for five divisions: Aircraft, Jet Engines, Ground Equipment, General Workshops and Materiel. The squadron consisted of a total staff of 270 people. After my military career, I started working at Fokker Aircraft as Program Manager of the F-16 fighter jet, delivering modernisation as well as structural and process improvements. Here I became familiar with implementing, structuring and supporting quality and configuration management. In 1995 I left Fokker as Program Manager Operations Maritime and started translating my skills, in the field of quality and configuration management, into the development of the Extended Systems Engineering methodology (ESE).
I applied ESE ever since, wrote an ESE book and practise what I preach & teach within our circular projects.